Evolution in Education [pp. 233-248]

THE PRzNCE TON RE VIE W.
ties must precede all useful expression-a principle which carries
with it a wealth of practical suggestion respecting the earlier
and the higher teaching of languages, and of literature also; for
any literature, ancient or modern, can be taught effectually only
in connection with the facts, conditions, and circumstances to
which it relates.
Nor must we be ashamed of the Adamic mode of learning
by onomatopceia. Nature furnishes only the few original roots
of our stock of words, but it is the glory and distinction of man
that he can not only, like the mocking-bird, appropriate to himself the language of other animals, but that by his powers of
articulation he can mould it into grammatical inflections, and
that by his reason he can render it the vehicle of the expression
of abstract ideas. But this Adamic lesson carries with it the
inference that radically and originally all human languages must
be the same or nearly so, not only in principle of construction, but to a large degree also in sounds, and that this radical
unity must be the real basis of philology, when it shall grow to
be an exact science, and when it shall be so taught in colleges
and schools. The Adamic philology seems so far to have been
left in the hands of very extreme evolutionists, like Vogt and
others of similar style, and hence gets a bad name with respectable educators. It has often been dismissed by philologists
with stale jokes about the "pooh-pooh" and "bow-wow" theories; the jesters not remembering that probably their own first
essays in language consisted of some natural interjections and
the imitation of the bark of the family dog. To some of these
gentlemen this may appear to be very wild and irreverent talk,
but they must bear in mind that I am only a naturalist, not a
philologist.
In like manner scientific thinkers fail to perceive the pro priety of adhering to an old and worn-out alphabet, patched
up to suit one language after another till it has lost nearly all
semblance of representing sounds, and creates a mystery of
spelling that repels and disgusts every learner, and wastes years
of precious time, to the practical exclusion of millions from any
benefit of learning at all. Nor is it easy to see the use of bar ring the access to knowledge with arbitrary and illogical gram matical analysis, with artificial rules cumbered with hosts of
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